THE ARCANE ARCHIVE

Secret Rituals of the OTO

To: alt.magick
From: heidrick@well.sf.ca.us (Bill Heidrick)
Subject: Re: "Secret Rituals of the OTO"
Date: 8 Jan 1996 03:25:06 GMT
wizard@primenet.com (wizard) writes:
>Ah! The rumors are tremendous fun! Specifically the rumors are:
Maybe we can add a bit:
>1) The modern O.T.O. (okay, to some of you, "The Caliphate") alledgely had
>few rituals in their hands until this book was published.
In 1977 e.v., only the Minerval through IInd were immediately to hand. We
recovered the rest we needed from Mildred Burlingame, widow of the last
acting Master of old Agape Lodge, before we got to that point in the
re-start of the series. Grady had received them from Crowley, via mail
from England; and other, earlier, copies were also available at Agape.
The King book was used for study purposes in some rehersals while we
made copies. Since then, we have recovered multiple drafts, in some
cases up to six different versions done by Crowley over the years.
O.T.O. had been effectively dormant from about 1950 until the later
1970's. J.Wolfe's cheat sheat of the signs, grips and words was always
to hand.
>2) The O.T.O. allegedly uses rituals from this book.
No, see above.
>3) Therefore, the O.T.O. allegedly wants to make sure that the book does
>not get wide distribution, not so much that others would find the
>information, but so that people who get initiated, by not having previous
>access to the rituals, do not lose the psychological impact of the new
>ritual.
That is one of the major reasons. Another is the little problem we
run into of fake "OTO's" starting up. In December I learned that one of
our Ist degree members had been cozened into paying for bogus IInd and
IIIrd degree initiations in Germany by some individuals using King or
something similar to fake OTO initiations.
>4) Allegedly, in order to make sure of this, the O.T.O. wants members to
>purchase any copies of the book they see available. This has allegedly
>driven up the price of the book to $500.00.
Getting rid of them would be nice, but $500 is a little steep!
>5) Allegedly, the late author of this book was contacted by the O.T.O. who
>convinced him not to have the book republished. Same with the publisher.
Turned out to be unnecessary. King left off trying once we resurfaced,
and the publisher lost money on the 1st edition.
>6) Allegedly, the real problem is that the O.T.O. has copyrights on the
>material and chooses not to allow its re-realease with the threat of a
>copyright violation lawsuit.
You got that right, except it's more of a fact that a simple threat. :-)
>7) Of course, these are all nothing more than rumors...
Perhaps a little more, now.
93 93/93
Bill Heidrick, TG OTO

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